I'm going on vacation in Washington State for the next week. Using the new features of the upgraded blog, I've pre-written my posts for while I'm gone; but I won't be able to make corrections or comments, reply to emails, or report on any "breaking news."

The new Wilson Bridge bicycle/pedestrian deck is arguably the biggest bicycle project going on in the area. It'll be the farthest downstream crossing of the Potomac River possible on bicycle (According to Wikipedia "the Maryland Transportation Authority may transport bicycles for a fee as a courtesy if manpower and time are available" across the Nice Memorial Bridge, but that's not the same - it's also not a courtesy if there's a fee).

Anyway, I was looking at the Maryland side and I was surprised by the design. The bike lane will be on the north side of the bridge, but on Rosalie Island (On the Maryland side) they're going to build an extensive deck to cross over the Beltway, and connect to the south side. That's great. It will connect the WB to a park and National Harbor.

Concurrent with the reconstruction of the I-295 Interchange, Rosalie Island would be reconstructed to provide park amenities on the portion of the island south of the widened Beltway, a new deckover structure with landscaping as a gateway to Maryland and Prince
George's County, and a connection from this deckover structure to the pedestrian/bicycle lane along the north edge of the Potomac River Bridge. A separate bridge approximately 1,700 feet in length would connect the
southern portion of Rosalie Island with the mainland, providing access for bicyclists and pedestrians.

And the deck itself is going to be wide and parklike, which is pretty cool (see photo). But building a bridge over the beltway, that doesn't allow access to both sides seems wasteful.

The trail will connect downstream to National Harbor, and then continue under the National Harbor Access roads to Oxon Hill Road outside the beltway, which is good. But it won't provide a connection upstream along I-295 (specifically along "Ramp M") to the District. I don't know if this was for environmental reasons ("The island's north side will be preserved in its natural environment"), budgetary ones, or a little of both; but I think it's an oversight. A trail heading north could connect to the Oxon Hill Trail and to another along the Shepard Parkway.

I'm sensitive to environmental concerns, but we've built trails in environmentally protected areas before and we can do it safely. Besides, it's disingenuous to say that a 12 lane highway bridge built through Rosalie Island is OK, but adding a 12 foot (heck, I'd take 10) bike path pushes you over the tipping point. And I can say the same thing about the budget. "$2.5 billion for a bridge I could do, but $2.51 billion - now that's just crazy." I don't think so.

In the second picture, the trail is visible as the white line along the bottom of the image.

I don't write about Mountain biking because I haven't done it in 10 years, and then it wasn't for recreation, but as the best way to get around. Still, when I saw this article from the Post (Biker Learns Two Wheels Are Better Than Four) I definitely wanted to get out on one.

Seconds later, he was cruising down the slope at a top speed of nearly
40 mph on his 50-pound, $5,000 bike with eight inches of shock absorber
travel in the front and rear (think dirt motorcycle minus the motor).
The sound of knobby tires rumbling over the rough terrain and the
jingling of the chain smacking against the aluminum frame pierced the
silence on a recent morning at Snowshoe Mountain Resort.

It seems Snowshoe has it's own mountain bike course and it looks cool (see photo) and sounds like fun.

From the Mountain Bike Park with nearly 20 trails packed full of man
made features and rock drops to a scenic cross country ride on single
track or a fireroad to the teeth chattering 1,500 foot vertical
descents, there's a trail on this mountain waiting for you.

Kojo in your community recently did a show on northern Virginia transportation, as centered on Falls Church. I had expected it to focus on roads and transit, but there were a surprisingly (and encouragingly) large number of comments about cycling as a transportation option. Most of the comments came, not from the officials - elected or otherwise - but from the general public. I know this is a self-selected group, but it makes me think elected officials are behind the voters on this one. The cycling comments (they were all pro) I heard are listed below (warning: I might have missed or misquoted any/all if these)

Almost the first person to talk was asked if he had changed his commuting patterns due to traffic. Kojo was looking for someone who took transit, but instead he got a gentleman who now rides his bike on his 10-mile commute about twice a week. "Biking makes me feel good," he said.

One lady stated that bike paths are critical infrastructure in the area's commuting patterns and that some plans, Tyson's Corner for example, haven't adequately considered bike facilities.

One gentleman talked about how, when he was a kid, he biked everywhere. Then he got a car and drove everywhere. But now he bikes everywhere again. He kept saying that people need to get back on their bike and he talked about the W&OD trail - it's history and it's use by over 2 million people every year, many of them for transit.

One lady, after talking for a long time about how more lanes need to be converted to HOV, finished by saying that she rides her bike. 45 minutes to Rosslyn.

Another younger woman talked about moving to Portland and learning to bike everywhere - about how the culture of cycling changed her. She said that it rains and it's hilly but people bike - because it's FUN (my emphasis) and you feel like part of a community. But when she came back here she found cycling less appealing and more difficult. [This I think has to do with the tipping point issue. If everyone rode bikes more, biking would be safer and more accepted. But people won't ride until it's safer and more accepted. Maybe that's a chicken and egg thing. How do we get to the tipping point?]

Finally a gentleman made the following point: In America we have cars and we're trying to switch to bikes. In China they have bikes and are trying to switch to cars. Then he asked who's ahead of the curve and when Kojo threw the question back, he said "they are." [Not sure I agree with this, but I get his point].

1. Since I live on Capitol Hill, biking to baseball games is a breeze. It's the only way to go really. Parking is free, and right next to the door. And bike lanes on East Capitol make for an easy escape. So I'm curious to see what kind of bike parking goes in at the new stadium - where parking is likely to be more expensive and Metro will have less service.

the District hopes to “nudge people towards Metro in coming years and
to incorporate pedestrian, bicycle, taxi and eventually even boats to
broaden the possible entry points,” said Vince Morris, Mayor Anthony
Williams’ spokesman.

Of course from what I've seen of the Lerner Group, it's more likely that parking will look like this

than this.

2. WABA is currently seeking a fulltime staff
person for the position of Safety Education Program Coordinator. This
position is open until filled, but applications received by August
15th 2006, will take priority.

3. Go Clipless reported that white van drivers buzz past cyclists on the road an average of four and a half inches closer than do other drivers. And he has the evidence to prove it.

“Why white van drivers overtake closer is not clear; it could be a
range of things, from social or personality factors, to the length and
width of the vans, or even the stereotypical machismo of white van man."

4. Several months ago, Eric Gilliland of WABA was on the Kojo Ndamdi Show to talk about cycling. I didn't realize WABA thinks of the WB&A trail as outside of their service area. It's a great trail and building the bridge across the Patuxent should be a top local priority.

5. As part of their tour coverage (Floyd Landis won by the way, but Thor won the final stage) the AP ran a "blog." One report was about the difference between cycling culture in the US and in Europe.

On a visit home last month, I..
took a spin...in downtown Rome, Ga., where I was at
times greeted by honking pickup trucks and quizzical gazes of
passers-by. I battled shoulders of gravelly five-lane roads just to
ride to buy a newspaper (my mother would disapprove, no doubt). In Rome, it seems nobody rides a bike - aside from kids.

One American competitor on the Tour - Christian Vandevelde of Team CSC - says he thinks that cycling culture is changing at home, and hopes
U.S. attitudes toward biking will evolve more.

"I mean, I get run off the road just as many times in Spain as I do in
Boulder," he says, before catching himself with a laugh, "OK, that's a
lie..."

6. It sounds like the pedicabs aren't making the kind of money the owners expected. They need to run them for more hours/day. And why aren't they moving people around the mall more?

Although the owners have been pleased with their budding company's
success since its launch, it wasn't without snags. The bikes had some
mechanical troubles at first, and rain washed out several of their
opening nights. Also, taxicab drivers objected to a sign on the back of
the pedicabs advertising "taxi rides." So the owners struck out "taxi"
and replaced it with "bike!"

"We probably had some unrealistic
expectations," said Guthrie, 31, of Rosslyn. "We thought the money
would just come pouring in."

"We've been growing each year, but it's been pretty phenomenal this
month," said Chris Davidson, manager of Capitol Hill Bikes at 709
Eighth St. SE. Mr. Davidson said sales have been 50 percent higher than
the average each month. One recent weekend, the bike store sold 40
bikes, double the average of 20. "That's pretty big," he said.

In recent years, road-bike sales were linked to Lance Armstrong'ssuccess
in the Tour de France, which is held every July. Even though Mr.
Armstrong has retired, sales are increasing because consumers still see
much coverage of the race.

"Baby boomers, who were at the park running, are now looking for something less exacting on their bodies."

Retailers also say more people are commuting to work on a bike, as
studies suggest. In a 2002 one-day study, Metropolitan Washington
Council of Governments officials tallied 2,024 bikers heading into the
District during rush hour. In 1999, they counted 1,379 persons
bike-riding into the District. They are conducting the same study this
summer, but results won't be released until next year, said Michael
Farrell, a transportation planner for theMetropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

According to Fred Clements, executive director of the National Bike Dealers Association, bicycle sales are increasing nationwide, partly because of better biking facilitiesacross
the country. About 20 million bicycles were sold last year in the
United States, compared with about 18.3 million in 2004.

Balking at a price that's nearly eight times more than they had
offered, Memphis and Shelby County officials have dropped their efforts
to buy an abandoned railroad corridor for use as a recreational trail
system and possible light rail conduit.

When they began talks with the railroad, local officials said they
believed the price would be less than $2 million. Herenton and Wharton
signed a letter of intent to buy the acreage.

But a CSX appraisal of the property last year set its value at
$17.8 million. The local governments hired their own appraiser to
counter that, but A.E. Balkin & Associates this spring arrived at a
sum that's not much lower -- $15.7 million.

9. There's a new folding bike on the market. Industry Designer Ben Wilson demonstrates a folding bicycle A-bike, designed by Sir Clive Sinclair, at the launch of the bicycle outside the Design Museum in London, Wednesday, July 12, 2006, with the Tower Bridge in the background.

The June 26th rain storm caused quite a bit of damage in the
area and, because many of them are built in stream beds, bike trails suffered a
disproportionate amount of that damage. The Rock Creek Parkway was
closed for several days.

In the worst-hit area of Rock Creek Park, from Virginia
Avenue NW nearly to Military Road NW, crews hauled 18 trees off the parkway. An
82-foot section of pavement was eroded on Beach Drive, and parts of the bicycle
path were blocked.

I haven't been out to Rock Creek in the ensuing period, but
I assume that things are basically back to normal. That may not be a good thing
for some cyclists.

As frustrated motorists cursed the closing of Beach Drive,
some people were saddened to see Rock Creek Parkway returning to its normal
hubbub. For a day or two, runners, cyclists and dog walkers were elated by the
rare opportunity to claim the major commuter thoroughfare as their own.
Cyclists whizzed along, without the normal worries that a car was getting too
close.

The whole event served as an experiment - and an
advertisement - for what could be if the NPS decided to shut down parts of the
road in off-peak hours.

The closure of the road offered a glimpse of what would
happen if the National Park Service shut down segments of Beach Drive during
off-peak weekday travel periods, as the Washington Area Bicyclist Association
has been lobbying for it to do for years.

"I know the people who drive that road have been really
ticked off, but I've loved it," said Samantha Smith, 38, who rode her bike
this week between her Adams Morgan home and the National Institutes of Health
in Bethesda, where she works as a psychologist.

"It's like a dream come true," she said,
describing the joy of rolling down an empty exit ramp onto a vacant Beach
Drive. "It is really like my fantasy world. No cars, no noise."

RPUS
points to a letter from a yahoogroup about how nice it was, and questioned
whether closing the road - even during rush hour - had much
of a negative impact on traffic.

Now is your chance...run, walk, bike on Rock Creek
Parkway!

I ran this morning even in the rain because the chance to run the length of
Rock Creek down to the Kennedy Center is something I could not pass up. I heard
birds chirping, the sound of a very full Rock Creek flowing, and even the wind
blowing. No cars, no cars, no cars!!!

The politicians and our WONDERFUL elected officials are so afraid of this. Why?
Because all of the cars had to take the Beltway, drive through downtown, or
take some other way to get to work and did we have any major disasters with
traffic? No! I drove through downtown this morning (7:30AM) on Connecticut
Avenue to 21st Street down to Constitution and it only took me 15 minutes.

Now this proves that we can safely close the entire length of Rock Creek
Parkway on the weekends with no problem!! Why not??

I'm not sure that closing Rock Creek full time is a good
idea - and I'm pretty confident that it's not feasible. I'm also not convinced
with the "evidence" that it doesn't impact traffic. But, I think it
does show that Rock Creek can be closed during the off-peak hours and especially on the section between Broad Branch and Military
roads WABA suggested, without negatively impacting traffic. Still, with the powerful support for keeping the status quo, I suspect that Beach Drive will stay open to traffic.

One other bit of good news is that this damage happened BEFORE the trail is rebuilt. According to DDOT this will happen in the next "two to three years."

The plans are to rehabilitate the entire existing
facility, improving the safety and drainage of the trail. The contract
to design the trail is set to be approved by this summer, followed by
public comment and environmental assessments.

I'm waiting to see what this project will look like. I'm hoping they'll straighten it out in several places, push a path through the tunnel, add facilities to separate cyclists and runners where possible and as someone pointed out - keep a route open during construction for people using it right now.

So if you visit this site rather than read it off an RSS subscription you've noticed a new appearance. Recently WABA agreed to sponsor the site - covering the cost of upgrading to the Pro level - and so they're featured in a few places on the site. In addition to the fancy new banner and swanky look there are some other changes associated. One is that the blog can now have multiple authors. WABA is helping me line up a few people to post, which means you'll get better content. Multiple writers will bring multiple opinions and more insight (I can't attend every BAC meeting in every jurisdiction). It'll also mean I won't have to post as often, which is good since I start grad school in a few weeks and will probably have less time. And WABA has the option of running sub-blogs off of this one and they're considering some ideas on that. So all in all, more content. I'm still working out some of the kinks (typepad isn't very intuitive and the tools drop off once you try to break out of their standard themes) but the remaining things to fix are relatively small. Hopefully, you find the changes are an improvement and not a distraction.